


If You're a Ghost Then What Am I?

by Crimson1



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-22
Updated: 2016-09-22
Packaged: 2018-08-16 14:53:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8106559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crimson1/pseuds/Crimson1
Summary: Mick gets hurt on a routine mission, and Len tries to help dull the ache.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr prompt. This one just...stuck with me. Let's all cross our fingers for season 2...

Mick’s head pounded. It was only after he pressed the flat of his palm to his temple and pulled it away that he saw the smear of blood. He better not need stitches. 

“Hey, Metal Mouth?” Mick gruffed out, though the nickname had become more of an endearment than a jab, which Gideon responded to positively.

“Yes, Mr. Rory?”

“This need the med bay?”

“I don’t believe so, Mr. Rory, but do clean the wound carefully, and refrain from resting your eyes for the immediate future. If you’ve sustained a concussion—”

“’M fine. Not nauseous.” His head hurt like a bitch, but he knew what a concussion felt like. 

He sat on the edge of his bunk and closed his eyes, just for a moment to stymy the pulsing from his temple before he got up again. 

“You that hard of hearing? You need to take care of that.” Len’s voice invaded his quiet repose. 

Mick growled before he opened his eyes to see Len poised in the doorway, leaning all cocksure with his arms crossed, long legs extended at an angle that only he could balance so perfectly. “Not some kid with his first knock to the head.”

“No?” Len raised an eyebrow, then pushed effortlessly, elegantly from the doorframe and crossed to the sink in the corner of Mick’s room. “Coulda fooled me.”

Mick grumbled low, but he was too tired to complain further. It was harder to get up than he’d expected after sitting down. He’d let Len wet a washcloth just to spite him. Somehow…

“How’d you get hit anyway?” Len asked. “Wasn’t anyone watching your back?”

“Got it watching Palmer’s back. Guy woulda lost his whole head. Mine’s harder.”

Len snorted. 

“Ah, shuddup. Can’t let the golden boy go out like that. Mess up this karma you’re so sure I want to keep on the side ‘a good.”

“Never said anything of the sort,” Len said, crossing the room with his usual swagger, even while holding the dampened cloth. 

Mick stiffened. Not that he wasn’t used to Len being close. Len liked to get close to people he was conning, reel them into his charm, but he only meant it, only enjoyed the closeness when it was someone special. Lisa mostly. Mick tried not to think too hard on how often Len would sit closer to him and not flinch at his touch, even when sometimes it came with violence. 

Now Len sat beside him on the bunk, and brought his hand, glittering with the ring from the Alexa job, to his temple. The touch of the cloth was gentle, just the right amount of pressure to wipe away the blood, without pressing too hard and aggravating the pain. 

“Yer thinkin’ it,” Mick said.

“What? That you’re compiling good karma coz you like it? Tell me otherwise then, Mick. What’s in it for you, sticking with Team Rip?”

“Legends,” Mick groused. 

“Ah yes. Raymond does like that name better.”

“Jax’s idea.”

“He’s a good kid. Looks up to you. Jokes around and you don’t even glare at him.”

Mick didn’t respond. Jax was a good kid. Better than getting mixed up with this lot. But Mick wasn’t the only one trying to clear out some of the red from his backlog. Group of misfits, all of them, but if they could make a difference…if they could save even just a few people…

“I didn’t mean for all this…” Len said, softer, running the cloth down Mick’s cheek where the blood had dripped.

“Bullshit. This is exactly what you wanted. And ya had to go and drag me along with ya.”

“You’re the one who stayed.”

Mick kept his eyes forward, but he reached up, curled his fingers around Len’s wrist and felt the thrum of his pulse. Len paused the movement of the cloth. Mick could feel Len’s breath close on his cheek. Feel the heat of his body, subtle but present. Hear the gentle huff of an almost laugh in amusement. 

“You were s’pposed to stay too,” Mick said.

“Hey, Mick?” Ray’s voice jolted him alert, and Mick looked up, feeling the cloth in his hand…not a wrist. 

There was no pulse or warm body beside him, just the cloth as Mick held it to his cut. 

Ray entered without invitation, still half dressed in his suit. “Come on, Mick, you have to tell the team if you get hurt. You’re not in this alone. You saved my skin out there—again. Which I will definitely repay you for. Eventually. We’re partners, right?” His smile was always so blinding, so unfaltering. 

It should have gotten on Mick’s nerves, but he was too tired to protest when the younger man sat at his side where Len…hadn’t been a moment before…and took over cleaning the blood from his face. 

“I wait around for you to save my ass in a fight, I’ll never get payback,” Mick said. “Make some of those cupcakes again, I’ll consider us even.”

Ray chuckled. 

“And don’t call us partners, Haircut. You earn that title.”

“Sure, sure. I think I’m wearing you down,” he laughed too jovially, hand a little rougher than Len’s, but still careful around the cut, and down his face. 

Mick sucked in a breath and hoped Ray wouldn’t be stupid enough to ask, that he’d chalk it up to a sting of pain, not the empty ache burning deep inside of him. 

What Mick didn’t yet realize was that Len stood off to the side watching, invisible to both of them now, always rendered useless when anyone other than Mick was present. He didn’t know why, but he wondered if it had to do with taking Mick’s place, with the ring that was just as much Mick’s from the Alexa job, with Mick meaning more to Len than…

He couldn’t dwell, because he couldn’t do much more than exist with Mick from time to time, which his friend thought was merely a coping mechanism, or maybe that he was going crazy. Len didn’t dare explain that he was real, not when he didn’t yet know if there was a way for him to be saved from his limbo. Until he could appear to more than just Mick, or think of some way that he might be free someday, he couldn’t burden Mick with giving a promise he might not be able to keep, or that would likely cause their teammates to look at him like he was…grieving too hard to know the difference. 

Len watched Ray finish cleaning the cut and bandage it, all the while Ray’s mouth never ceasing a constant stream of words. When Mick finally relaxed in a way that Len knew meant he was growing more comfortable with the other man, something Mick didn’t allow with anyone, Len felt a bite of jealousy as he longed to take Ray’s place.

THE END


End file.
